Black Steel & The Secret Crush
by ZeeofGreenEyes
Summary: Kurogane, the masked crusader who prowls the night as Black Steel, can only to so much to protect the city, and his most important person, from villains. Superhero!fic! KuroFai, SyaoSaku, KuroKusanagi mentions.


The stoic masked crusader sat perched atop a high building, looking down at the electric lights of Tokyo. His mouth was set in a grim line as his gaze sank to the sidewalk directly beneath him. A wiry blond man was getting out of a cab in the street below, hopping easily over the gutter and avoiding drenching his pant leg. His eyes narrowed, fixed to the blond figure as he paid his fare, fished out his key from his backpack and made his way into the apartment building the crusader was sitting on. 

The Black Steel huffed with annoyance; that guy was so careless. He lived in a dangerous part of town and he was always blundering along, barely paying attention to his surroundings. He should have been keeping his keys in his pocket so he could make less noise. Was the guy even aware of the potential danger that practically clung to this street?

"Feh!" he said. He was sick of looking out for the idiot. He only did it because he knew that if the blond died, he'd have another death on his conscience and he would have failed in fulfilling his civic duty. He stood, his long, black cape flapping in the wind, and leapt off the building. He grabbed one of the decorative gargoyles as he fell, scrambling down the side of the building with inhuman agility until he came to the right window. He watched, trying to ignore how stalker-like this felt, until he heard a click and the door begin to open. He'd barely even caught a glimpse of blond before pushing off the building again, hopping from level to level until he touched down on the ground neatly.

Now he could finally get to work. Idiot.

"Eeek!" someone shrieked. The crusader turned to see an elderly woman poking her head out of a window on the bottom floor of the apartment building. She was staring at him with wide eyes. He stared back, equally wide eyes shining red through the black mask he wore.

"…"

"Y-you're that black teal fellow, aren't you?" she stuttered in terror, scrambling to find the window roller. Her gnarled hand clamped down on the crank, turning it rapidly. The window inched closed. The crusader would have rolled his eyes if he hadn't been using them already to glare.

"It's BLACK STEEL!" he shouted. The woman began turning the crank faster, panic etched across her wrinkled face. "Black teal doesn't even make any sense!" The window continued to close at a remarkably slow rate. "Feh!"

With that, Black Steel turned and melted into the shadows, something he'd gotten quite good at in recent years.

* * *

"Kuro-taan," came an annoyingly cheery voice. Kurogane stiffened, his hand twitching and crushing the paper cup he'd been holding. He looked over his shoulder at his work partner, smiling away as though he didn't walk through criminal-infested neighbourhoods every night. Kurogane turned all the way around at the thought; he wished the blond would take a cab more often. Then he could get on with his nightly activities.

"What?" he snapped. Fai handed him a mug of coffee wordlessly, grinning away like the absolute idiot he was. Kurogane took the coffee from him anyway. His eyelids were feeling heavy and he needed some waking up.

"You look tired," Fai remarked, as though reading his mind.

"Hn," Kurogane responded. Fai leaned closer, tilting his head to the one side. NOT blushing in the slightest, Kurogane backed up a bit, turning his head away. "Whaat?"

"You're falling asleep," Fai remarked, pulling back and collapsing lazily against their shared desk. "Your eyes are drooping."

"They're not drooping, I'm glaring. Idiot," he spat, taking a sip of his drink. He jerked back with a hiss, the hot coffee scalding his tongue and sloshing out of the cup, pouring down his arm from the sudden moment. He winced, hurriedly placing the mug down and flapping his arm back and forth in order to soothe the pain. "Damn it!"

"Wah, sorry Kuro-rin! I forgot you have a sensitive tongue!" Fai said, holding up both his hands in apology.  
"W-why the hell would you say something like that?!" he sputtered, looking down at his tie and noticing with a twitch that there was a giant stain across it. He grabbed some napkins from a table and began sponging the coffee off his arm, ignoring the tie for now.

"Kusanagi-san told me!" Fai declared, giving Kurogane a sly look. Kurogane gave him an annoyed, suffering look. Kusanagi was their supervisor. He and Kurogane had both gotten rather smashed at the office Christmas party and kissed. It had been totally innocent and accidental, but Fai hadn't let up on it and now the whole damn office was still making jokes.

"Shut. The hell. Up," Kurogane said, tossing the napkins in the trash. "Let's get to work."

"Your tie is stained," Fai remarked.

"I don't give a damn."

"Here," Fai said, slipping a finger in the loop of the other man's tie and tugging. Kurogane stiffened and glared down at him, his hands hovering awkwardly in the air on either side of the blond.

"I coulda done that myself," he growled as the blond slipped the tie from his collar, one finger brushing inadvertently against his Adam's apple. He swallowed thickly. Fai shrugged, balling up the tie and tossing it onto their desk.

"Perhaps," he said, grinning. He moved away and sat down at their desk. "Let's finish this article, shall we? Did you get the pictures?"

"I got 'em," Kurogane said, jerking a thumb towards his camera.

"Now we can start writing about this mysterious Black Steel fellow," Fai said, threading his fingers together over his typewriter. "Seems like a bit of a creep to me."

"You…" Kurogane growled, restraining himself. He sank down at his chair across the desk from the blond and seethed in silence. If only the stupid blond knew his secret…

A year ago, they'd been doing a story on the new museum opening. In order to promote the museum, the quirky owner had allowed Fai and him to see some of the artifacts out of their cases. Long story short, he'd touched this artifact that'd been shaped like a manjuu bun and woken up the next morning with night vision, increased agility and a body that was nearly impossible to maim. He'd figured the next logical step would be to go to the costume store and buy himself some spandex.

"He leaps out of the shadows and beats people up," Fai said, reading aloud as the typewriter keys clicked beneath his fingers. "He likes to lurk in alleyways. Several sources believe him to be a pervert."

"THAT'S NOT-! Tch. You can't write that shit without a real source," Kurogane said, fists clenching. Damn it, after all he did for the blond, he was labeled a pervert?! It wasn't like he WATCHED the blond from the window. He just hung around to make sure he was okay. He always left after the first few seconds. Mostly.

"Maybe I have a source!" Fai protested, writing away at his article.

"Hey, hey! Let me write it, you're gonna screw it all up."

"If Kuro-sama was going to write an article, it would be nothing but dots and grunts," Fai sing-songed, typing determinedly away at his article. Kurogane leaned back in his hair and huffed. So much for partners.

* * *

Black Steel dove in and out of the shadows, doing his best not to look like the lurker he was. His cape hugged his form, the only article of clothing he wore that was not skin-tight. He hopped up on a dumpster and then up onto the roof of one of the shorter buildings, scurrying through the night like a puppy scurrying through unknown territory.

He had to abandon Fai tonight. It wasn't that he wanted to, it was that his arch nemesis had shown up as he had been anonymously escorting Fai home (unbeknownst to the blond). Now he was giving chase, watching as the other man's crimson cape billowed tauntingly in the midnight wind, disappearing from sight only to flutter back into view every few seconds. With a roar Black Steel threw himself against the next building, scurrying up the wall and running across the roof, dropping back down the other side in order to corner the Maniacal Monocle.

"You've found me, Black Steel," the Maniacal Monocle sneered devilishly, a bag full of stolen goods under his arm and an emerald monocle balanced jauntily over his left eye.

"Hand 'em over," Black Steel demanded, holding out one gloved hand. The Maniacal Monocle laughed, his ass-chin jiggling in the brisk midnight wind.

"I refuse!" he bellowed, tossing a smoke pellet at the dark crusader and running off in the opposite direction. Black Steel ran right through the smoke and had cornered him again in minutes.

"Quit being a bastard! Hand 'em over!"

"Oh, I'll hand them over," the Maniacal Monocle began tantalizingly. "If you'll tell me who the blond is."

"…Hah?"

"The one you stalk," the Maniacal Monocle supplied. Black Steel bristled and sputtered, flailing a bit in his horror.

"I DO NOT STALK HIM!" he roared, wincing as pipes sent his voice reverberating off the walls of the alleyway. "He's just some guy."

"They say I'm a terror," Black Steel's arch nemesis remarked drolly. Black Steel's red eyes narrowed dangerously.

"This isn't about him, it's about those things you stole," Black Steel growled, reaching for his utility belt slowly.

"I need monocles," the Maniacal Monocle explained. "Without them, my name becomes meaningless."

"I don't give a damn," Black Steel said, finally clamping onto one of his more ingenious devices and drawing it swiftly. In seconds the Maniacal Monocle had flown back, being hit with the full force of Black Steel's retractable katana. The bag clinked to the ground and Black Steel snatched it up.

When he looked up, the Maniacal Monocle was gone.

"Pleasant dreams, Black Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel!" cackled a voice from somewhere up above. Black Steel looked around frantically, craning his neck towards the apparent source of the voice. A chunky crimson-clad leg was pulling itself laboriously over the side of a building, struggling to disappear over the top. In seconds the leg was gone and the huffing and puffing that had been echoing in Black Steel's ears was gone.

"GAH!" Black Steel cried, swinging the bag of stolen monocles over his shoulder. Escaped again!

* * *

"Mr. Black Steel returned the stolen eye pieces to the jeweler's and saved him twelve dollars," Fai read aloud, putting the finishing touches on his article. Kurogane was leaning back in his chair, grumbling, listening to the blond as he rambled on. He'd since stopped trying to influence whatever the blond wanted to write. He took the pictures and added a thought now and then; that was the extent of his job. Fai seemed to enjoy writing drivel too much to let him help.

"You finally finished spewing out crap?"

Fai ripped the paper from the typewriter and put it on the pile, nodding with a smile.

"Let's go to lunch, Kuro-tan!"

"I ain't gonna spend my lunch hour with you," he said, although he let the chair touch down on the ground and stood. Fai leapt up.

"C'mon, I'll pay," he said, grabbing Kurogane's arm and tugging him towards the door of their office. Kurogane gave a long-suffering sigh and grabbed his coat.

They went to the café across from the newspaper office, predictably. Fai ordered coffee as though taunting his still-healing tongue and poured over the photographs of Black Steel that Kurogane had taken.

"You couldn't get a more dynamic shot than one of him standing in your living room?" Fai said, wrinkling his nose as he flipped through the pictures of Black Steel looking through Kurogane's fridge, Black Steel drinking beer on Kurogane's couch and yet another one of Black Steel clambering out the window while looking over his shoulder at the camera.

"I'm lucky enough he lets me photograph him at all," Kurogane said, continuing the ruse he had going that Black Steel was an old high school chum of his. Fai raised an eyebrow at him and let his eyes roll back down to the pictures. Black Steel watching Kurogane's TV…

"Hey. Your apartment's got a lock, right?" Kurogane asked suddenly, thinking back on his action-packed night.

"Yup. Four. My neighbourhood's not the greatest," Fai said distractedly, taking a sip of his drink. Kurogane half-glared at him and took a gulp of his iced tea as the waitress brought them their food.

"What about on the windows?" Kurogane pressed further. Fai shrugged, flipping through more pictures. Black Steel riding Kurogane's elevator…

"I think they were broken when I moved in and I never bothered to fix them. I'm on the eighth floor, so I'm not really in any danger."

Black Steel saying hello to Kurogane's bewildered neighbours…

"Get 'em fixed," Kurogane ordered shortly, looking down at his plate uncaringly. Fai finally looked up at him and smiled.

"Hmm, Is Kuro-rinka worried for me?"

"NO," Kurogane said. "But if wind gets in and you catch a cold, you'll whine and I'll be inconvenienced."

"Whatever you say, Kuro-wan," Fai said slyly. Kurogane glared at him silently. This damn table was so small that Fai's feet had slipped between his own and were resting against the bar of his chair. Sullenly he moved so that their ankles were touching, thinking that if one of his enemies actually did go after the blond, NATURALLY he'd have to seek them out for revenge and it would all be one huge, epic pain in the ass.

* * *

"Baaahahaha!" bellowed the voice of the Promiscuous Programmer, a rather new super villain on the block who had moved into Black Steel's territory. He didn't even have any super powers! With a heavy sigh, Black Steel took out the teen with a quick roundhouse kick to the face, shattering the villain's glasses and sending him and his lustful expression into the pavement.

"Now, quit stealin' persocoms!" Black Steel growled, throwing the purloined persocom over his shoulder. The persocom, a pretty green-eyed number with short brown hair and a petite frame, was thankfully shut off, so he didn't have to worry about conversation. He took her back to her owner, a young determined-looking boy who cowered under the intensity of his gaze and accepted her back with enthusiastic thanks.

"T-thanks!" the boy sputtered, unable to keep eye contact with the majestic night warrior. Black Steel's posture straightened and he looked off dramatically into the night.

"S'nothin', " the caped crusader replied. The boy's eyes widened as he looked down at his beloved persocom and then back up at his new hero.

"H-hey, do you think you could teach me how to fight?" he asked, determination burning in his eyes. Black Steel scoffed; he worked alone. He had no room for friends, or protégées, or significant others…

He suddenly remembered that Fai would be getting back from his synchronized swimming class about now. He needed to make sure he made it home without getting mugged or beaten up or whatever the thugs were up to tonight.

"No," he told the kid. "I work alone."

"I'll grow up to be strong on my own, then," the boy declared, tightening his grip on his persocom. "So I can protect her."

Black Steel gave a tiny smile.

"You do that," he said.

"I'll see you then, maybe!" the boy said, clenching a determined fist. "I'll help you fight crime to keep the city safe."

"Yeah, great."

"I'll be the Determined Dashing Detective!" he declared, fire burning in his eyes. Black Steel had been turning to leave when he heard this, stiffened, and turned back around indignantly.

"You can't have more than one adjective in a name, kid," he told him wisely. The boy looked up at him in awe.

"You can't?"

"No," Black Steel said, squatting down so as to be at eye-level with the twelve-year-old. "And you gotta find something more badass than 'detective.'"

"But nothing goes well with D!"  
"You just gotta find something that works! Lemme see…" Black Steel trailed off.

Far away, the Maniacal Monocle was employing his minions to rob the local bank of thousands of dollars in order to legally (sort of) buy monocles from various stores across the globe in order to compare. Black Steel always got in the way whenever he tried to steal them like a good villain. At the back of his mind, the crimson villain with the epic chin cleft wondered why his nemesis was not showing up to stop him.

He wandered through town, feeling a little lost, until he came upon Black Steel in the park. The caped crusader was sitting on the side of the road with a kid and his persocom, counting off something on his fingers.

"And you gotta make sure your costume is skin tight. I can't stress this enough, kid. The less of you that is left to the imagination, the better. Got it?"

"Got it!" the kid was saying, looking overwhelmed. "Thank you for the lessons in derring do, Black Steel-san!" He bowed.

"They ain't lessons. And I ain't teachin' you again," Black Steel said, standing. He turned, about to stomp off when he caught sight of his arch nemesis leaning smugly against a lamp post. A car drove by and drenched him in gutter water, but the villain was too much of a pro to show any reaction and merely stalked forward, dripping wet and wearing a fiendish smile.

"You're making new friends, I see," he said, looking at the determined little boy who was propping up his persocom, trying to make her comfortable.

"Leave me alone. I got stuff to do," Black Steel said, brushing past him.

"Blond stuff, I assume?"

Black Steel's blush was as bright and red as the ever burning sun.

"S-S-SHUT UP!"

"I see. It's more like a goal you have," the Maniacal Monocle said. The muscled marauder was beet-read and sputtering.

"A-A-AS IF I'D-!"

"Of course not. But it does make things… interesting," the Maniacal Monocle said, looking thoughtful. Black Steel's eyes narrowed.

"If you touch him…" he growled. The Maniacal Monocle laughed heartily.

"Give me a little credit. Going after the secret love is the oldest trick in the book," he said. "Besides, he's all the way up on the eighth floor and the fourth window over."

"…"

"Well, I'll leave you to your… tutoring," the Maniacal Monocle finished, looking pointedly at the boy who had switched his persocom back on with her ear-switch and was holding her hand comfortingly. "I have villainy to conduct."

"Bastard!" Black Steel cried out, taking off into the night and running off towards Fai's apartment. "Kid, get inside!"

"Huh?" the boy asked, looking up and finding himself alone with his persocom. "O-oh."

"Let's go home, Syaoran-kun," the persocom suggested gently, smiling. Syaoran colored and nodded.

"Okay, Sakura-chan."

"Thank you for trying to protect me. I'm sorry I couldn't do the same for you," the persocom said, looking down ashamedly. Syaoran shook his head frantically.

"N-no! It's okay! It's not your fault that guy-! Well, I'm just glad you didn't lose any data or… or memory," he said, looking away embarrassedly. Sakura smiled softly.

"Me too," she said, reaching out to take her owner's hand.

* * *

Black Steel shoved open Fai's window and rolled inside, leaping to his feet at the end of the little acrobatics show and feeling like an absolute idiot when he saw Fai standing there in his bathrobe, holding a cup of tea and looking at him oddly.

"Um. I'm doing random apartment checks," he said, deepening his voice in order to fool the blond. Fai raised an eyebrow at him.

"Checks for what?"

"V-villains," Black Steel stammered, trying not to look at the way the blond's hair was messed from sleeping and the way his neck looked even longer and more enticing when it wasn't covered up by a tie. He swallowed and looked away.

The great masked crusader toed the carpet awkwardly.

"W-well, there aren't any villains here," Fai said, laughing a bit. "Um. Mr. Black Steel."

"I better stay here just in case," Black Steel declared, crossing his arms in a way that left no room for argument. Fai tapped his fingers against his cup, thinking for a moment before his smile deepened.

"I only have the one bed," he said, shrugging innocently. Black Steel shook his head.

"I'll sleep standing up."

"Oh, it's fine, Black Steel-kun. I don't mind sharing. It's a double bed," Fai said, smiling generously before it was interrupted by a yawn. "Don't steal anything, please."

"WHY THE HELL WOULD I DO THAT?!" Black Steel roared, coughing hurriedly to cover up his voice and turning away. "I-I mean, I'm not going to share your bed. That's final."

Minutes later, Black Steel found himself sprawled across his secret crush's bed, unmoving and wide-eyed. God, that sounded stupid. If all his enemies knew he'd just mentally referred to Fai as his "secret crush," he'd never be taken seriously in this town again.

He sighed shakily. He'd been in Fai's apartment, but they'd never shared a bed before. He stared resolutely at the ceiling, trying not to let himself turn and look at the other form in the bed. After a few minutes he forgot and turned to look anyway, unable to stop a hand from reaching out to tentatively stroke the soft hair a little.

He snapped his hand back to his side as Fai shifted in his sleep, his heart pounding wildly.

The blond was breathing softly and the sound was almost enough to calm him down before Fai rolled over in his sleep and threw an arm across his chest, nuzzling his cheek into his spandex-covered shoulder.

The blond's breath was hot against his neck and he stiffened anew. Damn it. Awkwardly he shifted so that one arm curled around the blond in return. It was best to keep the guy close in case anyone attacked, he decided, and snuggled minutely closer.

* * *

Fai blinked at the man standing in his doorway with a sleeping bag rolled up under one arm and a pillow under the other.

"Did we plan a sleepover I forgot about?" he said with an oblivious grin. Kurogane stomped into his room and threw down his stuff, sitting down resolutely and keeping his eyes pinned on the window.

"I'm spending the night," he declared, ignoring the sleepover comment. Masked defenders didn't have sleepovers. They had stake-outs. Fai closed the door.

"Alright. You don't have to sleep on the floor, though," Fai said.

"YES. I DO," Kurogane declared, unable to make eye contact with his colleague. He made a point of fluffing up his pillow and slamming it down on the hard ground, flopping down heavily and crossing his arms stubbornly. That stupid blond. Now he'd be fantasizing about last night all the damn time. Like it wasn't already hard enough to work with the idiot.

Besides, the blond had let a complete stranger sleep in his bed with him. Fai was always careless and thoughtless, but he hadn't thought he was THAT dumb. He really would be dead without me, Kurogane thought as Fai stepped over him exaggeratedly.

"Well, do you want something to drink?"

"NO. I JUST WANNA SLEEP," Kurogane growled. What if it had been some villain? His eyes narrowed at the thought of that damn Monocle sharing a bed with him. As if! Still, it made his eyes train themselves more diligently to the window. Like hell he was going to let more villains come in and try to sleep next to Fai.

"Okaaay, Kuro-sama, my floor is always open to you," Fai said, looking tired. Well, Kurogane thought, it was 1am. He smooshed his head back into the pillow and sulked. Now he'd be thinking about that dumbass Monocle cuddling with his man all day. What the fuck ever.

* * *

Five days and no sign of his arch nemesis. Kurogane watched moodily as Fai typed up a report of his encounter with Black Steel, drumming his fingers across the oaken desk. He'd spent the last four nights at the blond's apartment, sitting up all night and watching the place like a hawk. So far he'd done nothing but deprive himself of sleep and hallucinate a little. That little side effect had caused him to attack Fai's cat.

Whatever. Watanuki could deal.

"…And then he pinned me to the wall and-"

"WHOA WAIT," Kurogane said, finally comprehending what the idiot was writing. "THAT'S NOT TRUE. YOU CAN'T WRITE THAT."

"How do you know it isn't, Kuro-sama?" Fai asked slyly, looking at him through lidded eyes over his typewriter. Kurogane's heart lurched and he looked away quickly.

"There's no way that guy could want an idiot like you, that's how," he ground out. Fai kept on smiling.

"I'm embellishing it a bit for the readers," he said. "It's more fun that way."

"Lies aren't supposed to be fun."

"This one is! Besides, lots of Black Steel's female fans might find hope of receiving a similar ravishing," Fai remarked, typing away. Kurogane blushed.

"YOU didn't get ravished," he argued in vain. Fai shrugged.

"Nope," he said easily.

"So it's a lie," Kurogane deadpanned.

"It's the truth, stretched!" Fai declared. "The paper hadn't been selling too well lately."

"Doesn't mean you can make up shit," Kurogane grumbled.

"Maybe if you took pictures of your friend doing something besides taking out your garbage or screwing in a light bulb for you, I would put a little more effort into my writing," Fai remarked dryly. Kurogane bristled.

"You're his new best friend. You take pictures," he said, hoping he didn't sound as jealous of himself as he did to his own ears. Fai smiled and shrugged.

"Maybe I will," he said. "Too bad he already checked my apartment for villains."

"Y-yeah…"

"Well, maybe next time you see him, you can set us up," Fai said, typing away again. Kurogane glared.

"I'm not gonna arrange for you to go on a DATE with that guy," he growled.

"Don't be jealous, it's purely a working relationship," Fai said, waving a hand to pacify his partner. Kurogane's glare intensified. "Though I might make a comment on how he is exactly my type."

"…What about him is your type?" Kurogane said slowly, regarding the writer warily.

"Oh, certain things. Certain things," Fai said enigmatically, ripping the paper from the typewriter with a note of finality. "Kuro-tan, let's go to lunch."

"I can't afford to keep buying you lunch every day."

"Come on, let's go!"

"Ugh. Fine. Just shut up about it."

"Hurray!"

* * *

"Hey! Excuse me, sir!" Syaoran called. Black Steel slowed and looked over his shoulder at the kid running up the street towards him. He sighed and stopped completely. Damn it, this was the wrong night. He was headed over to Fai's after a few hours of crime fighting and he knew for a fact that he was exactly his type this way. It wasn't a perfect scenario by any means, but-

"I designed my outfit," he said, holding up a bad of paper towards the established superhero. "Can you tell me if it's alright?"

Black Steel took it, intending to give it a quick glance before tossing it back before he noticed the colour of the cape.

"No, no, kid! You can't have a red cape! Everyone'll see you!"

"That's bad?"

"You gotta blend in with your environment. If villains can see you, you can't surprise them, see?"

"Oh, of course!"

"And these gloves, they're too baggy. Feh. You got a pencil?"

"Yes! Um, here!"

"Okay, fold this back…"

Hours later, Black Steel dove through Fai's window, but didn't make as smooth of an entrance as he had last time. His leg got caught under himself and he ended up sprawling more than rolling. This was alright, though, because he was exactly Fai's type. Finally, some goddamn reciprocation from the idiot. God knows he didn't get any respect as his partner at work.

Fai wasn't in the living room, so he stomped into the bedroom and sank down on the bed next to him. As the mattress bounced beneath his weight, Fai blinked awake and looked up at him blearily. He rubbed at his eyes and yawned.

"Oh. Hello, Kuro-tan," he said. Black Steel's heart froze.

"It's Black Steel," he said, deepening his voice warningly. Fai looked at him oddly for a minute before nodding in what Kurogane could have sword was a humouring manner.

"Right, right. Black Steel," he deadpanned. He sat up and rubbed at the back of his neck, still blinking the sleep from his eyes. "Can I help you?"

"Uuh," Black Steel fumbled for words. Then, he decided, screw it. He leaned forward and captured the blond's mouth, tugging off one glove so that he could touch the back of his neck and hold him in place. Fai sighed heavily in what, for some reason, sounded more like exasperation than anything else and kissed back, wrapping his arms around Kurogane's spandex-covered waist.

This nice moment was ruined when Fai's apartment wall imploded. Coughing on the thick, scarlet smoke that billowed in, Kurogane squinted through it all just in time to see a familiar, monocle'd face grinning devilishly before he felt Fai slipping away from him.

"I've got you now!" he cackled.

"H-hey!" Black Steel snapped, but the Monocle was gone, as well as the man he'd just given his purity to. Damn it! He'd said it at the beginning, he wasn't going to go through all this shit for Fai because revenging was a pain in the ass.

Sighing heavily in annoyance, he hauled himself up and leapt out the hole in the apartment wall. If Fai died before he figured out where he'd been taken, he'd scour the earth to find some way to revive the dead just so he could kill him again.

* * *

"MONOCLE!" Kurogane roared, having cast aside his mask in rage upon finding the dastardly villain awaiting him calmly by the dockside. At least, he thought he had been waiting for him until the villain removed his monocle, rubbed it on his shirt, and looked again.

"Black Steel?" he said in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

Kurogane paused, confused. This situation had never come up before.

"…You took my secret crush," he said weakly, too worried and confused to care about appearances. The Maniacal Monocle gave him a weird look.

"That guy is your … ahem, secret crush?" the villain articulated. Kurogane glared.

"Why else would you take him?!" he demanded. "Wait… Where is he?!"

The Monocle, clearly still trying to link two ideas together, looked thoughtfully over at a spot on the water's surface where a few weak bubbles were popping on the surface. Kurogane gasped in horror.

"You're drowning him?! You bastard!" he growled, ripping off his shirt with great difficult and running down the dock towards the water. A giant wave hit him square-on just as he was about to jump, throwing him back so that he knocked his head against the wooden planks of the dock. He sat up blearily, coughing up water. He barely had time to recognize Fai, his pajamas wet and sticking to his frame and the severed remains of a manacle fastened around his ankle, before the blond was delivering a fierce kick to the side of the Monocle's head. In a display of immensely powerful symbolism, the Monocle's monocle loosened and fell, shattering on the docks and raining little bits of glass down into the water below.

The Monocle ran his hands down the side of his bloody face in wonderment.

"I'm… free!" he said reverently.

"YOU USED THAT TRICK ON ME ALREADY!" Kurogane roared. "TWICE!"

"Four times for me," Fai remarked.

The Monocle cursed and scrambled to his feet, standing ready.

"Curse you, Wizard," he said, eyes pinned on Fai. "Two against one is hardly fair."

"Wizard?" Kurogane echoed.

"Hello, Kuro-sama!" Fai said, waving merrily. "Nice to see you at work, finally. I mean, the other work. You know."

"FINALLY?! W-wait, no, this… I can explain…"

"Oh, don't bother, Kuro-tan," Fai said, waving a hand. "I already know all about it."

"…You do?!" Kurogane said, stopping with the attempts at shielding his face. "SINCE WHEN, YOU BASTARD?!"

"Since… well, always, I guess."

"Why didn't you say anything?!" Kurogane roared, standing. "It woulda saved me a lot of trouble trying to make up shit!"

"I didn't want to spoil your fun," Fai said, laughing. "Kuro-sama was so cute, beating up thugs!"

"But… But HOW…"

"Well, let's see," Fai began, beginning to count off his fingers. "Firstly, I've worked with you for years. I know your face and voice. Secondly, that suit doesn't actually leave anything to the imagination. Then there was the fact that you had a bunch of pictures of Black Steel doing your housework, you don't work nights, you were sleeping over at my house all the time after Black Steel did the same, and you always corrected me when I was writing articles about you. Also, you told everyone you were Black Steel when you got drunk and snogged Kusanagi."

"I DID NOT SNOG THAT GUY!!" Kurogane roared indignantly. Fai looked at him softly.

"Really, Kuro-rin. Haven't you heard of me? I'm the Wizard. I've been crusading way longer than you have," he said, placing his arms on his hips.

"…I mighta heard somethin'"

"You didn't really think I took synchronized swimming classes, did you?"

"..."

"Well, why do you think I live in such a dangerous neighbourhood and yet I've never been mugged?"

"Because I've been-!"

"No, not because you've been stalking me."

"…"

"And I'd never be so naive as to let some costumed weirdo sleep in the same bed with me. I only did that because I knew it was you."

"Wait. If you knew it was me, why the hell didn't you stop me when I…" Kurogane trailed off, the words gathering up in his throat. He rubbed at the back of his neck embarrassedly. He was definitely gonna be teased about this for a while, he thought with a healthy dose of dread pooling in his stomach. Fai laughed and padded across the docks to him, wrapping his arms around his waist and leaning flush against him. Kurogane colored.

"Because Kuro-sama is exactly my type," he said before leaning up on tip-toe to kiss the other masked crusader. Kurogane, cursing himself for not paying attention when villains occasionally rambled on about the OTHER heros they had to thwart that night, kissed back passionately. About damn time.

While this tender meeting of hearts developed, the Maniacal Monocle quietly escaped and blew up an empty credit card company building.

Kurogane saw it in the paper in bed the next morning and decided maybe he really wasn't cut out to be a caped crusader after all, seeing as he really couldn't give a damn when the blond was kissing his way down his neck. He tossed the paper out the still-present hole in Fai's apartment and pulled him up for a kiss.

"You don't need to quit, Kuro-tan. You can be my sidekick," Fai said, pulling back and trailing a finger down his bicep.

"I'm not a sidekick," Kurogane growled, glaring at the blond. Fai grinned at him.

"We'll see!" he said, snuggling up.

"Ugh. Just shut up and c'mere."

And they both proceeded to shut up for a long, long time. ♥


End file.
